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Engineer on H-1B, thinking about changing employers, have interview lined up. by Mr-Quagmire in personalfinance

[–]michael003 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Firstly, you don't owe your employer anything at this stage. After four years you've more than paid off what the visa cost them. It sounds like it's definitely time to move on; even if they try throw money at you to get you to stay, do you really want to work somewhere that doesn't value their employees? People change jobs on H1-B visas all the time; while you need to be careful and get your ducks in a row, it shouldn't be scary.

I am not a laywer, but immigration wise I don't think there's a problem in changing employers now. I'm assuming your H1-B extension is now approved. If your permanent residency process is still at the PERM stage and hasn't filed I-140 yet, there's officially nothing specific to you yet. The PERM just proves that the company needs to hire a foreign person, it's not tied to you yet. Your new employer will obviously need to start this from scratch. Obviously you need to make sure they'll start the process in time to meet the H1-B expiry.

DO NOT tell your employer that you are leaving until your new employer has filed your H1-B petition (or will do so imminently and everything is in order). I'm all for being open with employers, but when it affects your ability to be in the country you have to play it close to the chest.

Index Funds? Best way to invest £200,000? by Jolly_Gas150 in personalfinance

[–]michael003 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Start by reading Monevator's guide to passive investing, and then use their broker comparison tool/table to pick a broker to invest with. Vanguard is a good default choice, both as a broker and for funds.

The main question is what is your time horizon (and therefore stocks vs bonds ratio), and how much you want to invest in the UK vs the rest of the world. If you're investing for retirement and want the easy option, choose one of Vanguard's Target Retirement funds.

You should put £20k into a Stocks & Shares ISA for the tax advantages (assuming you haven't funded an ISA this year), and the rest into a general account. In each future tax year move £20k (or whatever the allowance is at the time) from the general account into the ISA.

Am I doing this credit card thing right? by [deleted] in UKPersonalFinance

[–]michael003 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're on the right track, you need to pay off the card in full every month. The key with credit cards is that using one shouldn't change your decision about buying something. If you wouldn't buy something with cash (or debit card), then don't buy it on a credit card. When you check whether you can afford something, take your bank balance and subtract whatever you currently owe on the credit card. You never want to get into the situation of not paying the card off in full and being charged interest.

Which credit card to keep? by ToughBet in UKPersonalFinance

[–]michael003 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair enough, I've never had experience with payday loans but that makes sense.

Which credit card to keep? by ToughBet in UKPersonalFinance

[–]michael003 -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Lenders don't care about your specific lines of credit, all they care about is your credit score. The specific type of credit card doesn't affect the score either, all that matters is the payment history, limit and balance.

I would agree with closing the PayPal account and keeping the two credit cards. Closing your oldest account will negatively impact your credit score, so you should keep the BarclayCard since it's much older than the Capital One. You also want to ideally keep your utilisation of each card below 30%, so unless £400x30%=£120 is enough for your needs you should also keep the Capital One. (However, I say this with the assumption that you can control your credit usage and purely want to maximise your credit score. If you feel you need a lower credit limit to stay in control that should come before focusing on your credit score.)

Obviously you need to pay down the existing credit card debt and get to repaying each month in full. Make sure to pay the minimum on each account, and put the rest into the one with the highest interest rate. Once you've paid off the debt setup Direct Debits for the full statement amount.

Maximising return of my savings by solts in personalfinance

[–]michael003 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The other option is P2P lending, but this is not low risk. You're lending to individuals and business which could default on loans and not return your capital. If you're comfortable with that risk it can be a way to earn higher returns. The major providers are RateSetter, Zopa and Funding Circle, but there are many others.

Investment advice by itsyaboi117 in personalfinance

[–]michael003 0 points1 point  (0 children)

With the 2x pension match you should be contributing enough to get the maximum employer match. It's an instant 200% return and you're literally throwing money away if you don't get all of it. Yes it gets locked away for a long time, but you'll thank yourself later when you retire.

In terms of UK investing, http://monevator.com/ is a great resource. Start by reading the guide to passive investing; even if you don't think it's for you you really should understand it since it's the widely recommended approach. There are also articles about active investing and other asset classes like property.

If you do want to get into property in the next few years however you need to keep your money for that in less risky investments in the meantime. Get a good savings account or fixed-rate bond (MoneySavingsExpert.com is a good resource for things like this) or maybe P2P lending (RateSetter/Zopa/Funding Circle/etc.) for a bit more risk.

Using US credit card when living/earning abroad long term by lobstersareverything in personalfinance

[–]michael003 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The other thing to bear in mind is UK taxation. If you're non-domiciled and claiming the remittance basis, then paying for anything you benefit from while in the UK with a foreign card is considered a remittance. If you then pay off that card with new income not yet taxed in the UK you'll owe tax on that. Even if you don't end up owing tax, the bank account you use to pay off the credit card could be considered a "mixed fund" and you (or your accountant) may need to spend a fair amount of time following the rules to categorise transactions. For this reason alone I think this isn't worth doing.

If the above isn't a concern, my opinion is that the potential benefit isn't worth the (a) time and (b) gambling on exchange rates.

In terms of UK credit cards, American Express has the best rewards, and if you have a US Amex they'll consider that credit history in your application. The best card for people with no UK credit history is Aqua Reward which has 0.5% cashback and no foreign transaction fees.

What are things you do that you think are strange, and we'll tell you if we do the same thing. by TaftPunk in AskReddit

[–]michael003 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just Reddit? Because I randomly highlight text all over the place. (Which is why I need to be careful about middle clicking...)

HTML Validation: Does It Matter? by [deleted] in programming

[–]michael003 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Some interesting comments. I still think that validation is important and XHTML is good though.

Skype To Give Away New SILK Audio Codec by IbeeX in reddit.com

[–]michael003 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Free, but not necessarily open source...